


where do I call home?

by everythingFangirl



Series: so call me when the world looks bleak (dream smp oneshots) [4]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Abandonment, Alcohol, Angst, Betrayal, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, hehehe how many ways can I shove mentions of Lunch Club into the Dream SMP storyline?, jschlatt word of the day: misery, other people are mentioned but ehhhh, yeah i don't know what this is either, you have no idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27199753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingFangirl/pseuds/everythingFangirl
Summary: I’m so sorry, thought you loved meTill the day I’d die,but when it came you wouldn’t call meThe gulf between the men he knows, sworn to destroy each other, and the boys he sees in the photograph, laughing together like old friends, seems almost impassable in Fundy's mind.So what happened?
Relationships: Floris | Fundy & Jschlatt, Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot, No Romantic Relationship(s), shoo - Relationship
Series: so call me when the world looks bleak (dream smp oneshots) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1966438
Comments: 28
Kudos: 201
Collections: Dream SMP Connected Storylines





	where do I call home?

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [we could leave](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26904631) by Anonymous. 



> This technically takes place in the same timeline as my other work "one hundred hours to rearrange the stars", but they can both be read separately (especially considering that they have very different styles).
> 
> Title and description quotes are from the song [Nostalgia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzwlpJUUGNU) by Madi. (NOT meant to be romantic in any way)

Fundy cautiously takes a step inside the office of the White House, led by some errand to grab some document or other for Schlatt. Most of his mind is screaming at being forced to follow that dictator’s orders, his hands twitching to the sword in his hotbar any time he’s near the man, but… no. Stay quiet, build his trust, play the long game. He has to do this, even if being used as an errand boy even after his achievement with the flag wounds his pride in almost, but not quite, the same way that Wilbur’s babying did. 

But that doesn’t matter right now. He steps forward again, walks around Schlatt’s haphazardly organized desk (is that a baby plush sitting in the corner there?) to rifle through the papers strewn across it. 

His hands finally close around the document that he needs just as his eyes land on something amongst the stacks.

Three small pieces of paper, almost as if they’d been discarded there. Photographs.

He should leave. Fundy knows that. He should leave, and he shouldn’t be snooping around in the possessions of his superior -

But he’s a spy, right? What’s the harm in getting a little extra info, really? He can’t deny curiosity has already taken hold. 

So he reaches out, and flips over the first photo.

Six men standing side-by-side on a beach, against the backdrop of a perfect blue sky. At first glance, Fundy doesn't recognize any of them. He skims along their faces, only registering the most basic details: tall and dark-haired and glasses, curly-haired and short, brown-haired and bearded, a -

A pair of curled horns. 

It takes Fundy a moment to comprehend what he's seeing. Schlatt is almost unrecognizable in the photo: clean-shaven, having traded his immaculate suit for a hoodie and cap, a strange pink camera hanging around his neck, and... smiling. 

Not in that maniacal, evil way he smiles these days, but... genuinely. Like he’s genuinely happy to be there, alongside his friends. And the group can’t have been anything _but_ friends, Fundy realizes, from the way they're laughing together, looking as if they had no worries in the world, just enjoying each other's company. 

He's never seen Schlatt like this. He's never even thought that Schlatt _could_ be like this, just a young man hanging out on a beach with his friends. In a way, he looks almost innocent. Almost human.

Whoever Schlatt is now, it can't be the man in that photo.

This is personal. Far more personal than anything he was expecting to find. Fundy knows he should leave, that if he were caught here, Schlatt would probably be furious, but he can’t stop his bitter curiosity as he flips to the second picture in the stack. 

He recognizes Schlatt immediately, this time. Still clean-shaven, but once again wearing a suit, although he looks somehow... younger. Younger than the first photo, even. Less tired, with the devious spark in his eyes looking more mischievous than outright destructive. He has an arm thrown around the shoulders of a second man, dressed in an identical suit but with a purple tie and accented with a single golden glove, smiling just as wide as Schlatt himself. Wedged between them and barely in frame is a boy in a pink hoodie, hair held back by a headband and face covered by a white mask reminiscent of Dream's. 

There's an entire city behind them. 

Buildings and structures and roads spreading out as far as the eye can see, skyscrapers and shops and a single, towering tree shadowing everything beneath it. Fundy doesn't recognize any of it, but something about the scene invokes a sense of... nostalgia, almost? Sentimentality? If any settlement as big as this still existed, Fundy would have heard of it. This place must have been destroyed ages ago. And still, seeing the bright lights and bustling roads, the bright, hopeful grins of Schlatt and his companions... it aches to imagine what they must have lost. 

And seeing this Schlatt, young and cheerful and surrounded by friends... what must have happened to change that? What turned this man into the monster he is today?

Fundy flips to the third and final photo, almost afraid of what he’ll find. 

Schlatt’s suit is torn, his hair soaking wet. The land behind him is ravaged and torn, an impossibly large wall of water spawning out of nowhere and crashing over it, and yet, despite the carnage, the expression on his face can only be described as pure euphoria. The sheer relief of survival. 

And the person beside him…

Fundy’s breath catches in his throat. 

Wilbur looks younger. His hair’s disheveled underneath a black beanie, his bright yellow sweater that Fundy’s never even seen him wear stained by mud and water and blood, and yet his smile is a perfect match to Schlatt’s own. The two are leaning against each other, Schlatt’s hand outstretched to hold the camera, arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning like… well, like friends. 

They were friends. Fundy had known this, and yet it had not quite sunk in until the evidence for it was thrown right in his face. Because the two men he knows, who had bitterly denounced each other, planned to overthrow and destroy each other, whose rivalry had torn his entire country apart… he can’t reconcile them with the two smiling boys in the photo, as if it were the two of them against the world. 

The gulf between the men he knows and the boys he sees right in front of him seems almost impassable in his mind. 

So what happened?

“Fundy!”

He jolts, the photos slipping through his fingers and back onto the desk as he shoots upright - but it’s only Tubbo, calling to him from the doorway. (That suit fits him just a little too well, now.)

“Schlatt wanted me to check what’s taking so long.”

“Coming!” Fundy calls back, hastily shoving the photos back into their place and grabbing the file he’d been sent to retrieve. He’d have time to ponder Schlatt’s tragic backstory later. For now, there’s work to do. 

~

It turns out he doesn’t have much time after all. Because, soon, pretty much everything goes to shit. 

~

When the echoes of the screams and yelling and firework blasts of the festival have finally faded, Fundy walks along the abandoned attractions alone. He’d spent so long building all of this, trying to make sure everyone would have fun, and yet the memories of that day have already been tainted irreparably. 

Manberg’s quiet, now. Too quiet.

How did everything go so wrong?

Fundy’s torn out of his thoughts and his misery when he hears footsteps against the stone path. A figure approaches him, spiralling horns silhouetted against flickering torchlight.

“Quackity’s gone.” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Schlatt’s drunk, from the slurring of his words and the way he stumbles. “He’s run over to Pogtopia along with everybody else.”

It’s a development Fundy had seen coming for a while, now, but hearing it finally be confirmed still brings a dull kind of shock. Still, he can’t say he’s too surprised. 

“I’m… sorry to hear that.”

Who is it that Schlatt’s still got on his side, now? Tubbo’s most likely gone for good, after the whole festival debacle. Niki hasn’t been sighted since then, so she’s probably gone too. George and Jack have barely deigned to show up from the start, Eret is far more likely to ever support Pogtopia than Manberg, Techno’s theoretically on Schlatt’s payroll but his loyalties are questionable… so who does that leave? Ponk? Karl?

Well, it leaves Fundy. But -

“How long is it gonna be until you run off too?” Schlatt snaps with sudden ferocity, sending a jolt through Fundy’s spine. “How long is it gonna be until you fucking abandon me like everybody else did?”

“I -” Fundy starts, but his words get caught in his throat. Because the truth is, he doesn’t know. He hasn’t known for a long, long time.

He’s seen this man stand by and laugh as his old friend is hunted down and all but slaughtered by his own people turned against him, he’s trapped his trusted advisor in a box and mercilessly ordered his execution during a festival that the boy had organized himself, he’s torn down the walls that Fundy’s friends had labored on for days with nothing but their bare hands, he -

He’s seen hints of what he used to be, nothing but a man standing among friends with no care in the world -

“Oh, who am I kidding?” Schlatt scoffs, and takes another swig from the bottle in his hand. “Why am I fucking asking, anyway? You’ll probably be gone by the morning anyway. Nobody ever sticks around.”

He turns, beginning to stumble away, leaving Fundy dumbfounded and alone in the night. 

He can barely hear it when Schlatt starts rambling to himself. 

“Cooper said we’d be safe. Connor said we’d stick together. Charlie said we’d be a team. Well, look where that fucking got us. And Wilbur didn’t even bother to tell me…”

And when Fundy looks at him, disappearing into the darkness, he doesn’t see a dictator, or a demon, or an enemy. He just sees someone who’s miserable, and someone who’s alone.

Schlatt’s a villain. He is. There’s no doubt about it. This is the role he’s chosen for himself in this narrative, and absolutely everyone can attest that he’s played it to a T. 

It doesn’t matter what got him here. It’s not Fundy’s job to redeem him. 

But, Prime... he knows what it’s like to feel alone. 

So, if he takes a few steps forward, if he gently pries the bottle from Schlatt’s hands, if he leads him safely back home through the dark, if he makes sure the doors are closed against the monsters when he leaves and ignores the axe beckoning to him in his inventory through it all, well… 

What harm can it do, really? 

Nobody deserves to be alone like this. Not even a monster like Schlatt.


End file.
